The gaggle

A separate door might then open and a swarm of slightly older, crawling infants appear through it. The crawlers would be shepherded this way or that like a gaggle of slow-moving geese. If they had to go upstairs, they tackled the staircase like professional climbers determined to conquer Mount Everest, a mass of bobbing, well-padded bottoms heading for the peak.
And so it went on. A couple of hundred children aged between zero and six, all encaseds in neat, green-and -white checked gingham pinafores, came here every day. Some started at 8. a. m. and were given breakfast. One of most starling things about these children's was the tweeness which some were dresses. We had spotted the specialist children's shops full of powder-blue boys' outfits and pink girl's outfits before coming parents ourselves.
But it was when a delicate, powder-blue, knitted.cotton, ribboned baby suit arrived from an acquaintance who was not only meant to be a prominent feminist but also a Socialist minister, that we realised this was just not fashion for 1950 nostalgists. At the nursery school and in the park, we would see parents who looked and dressed like us, parading children dressed in elaborate knickerbockers, smocked dresses, sashes, bows, Peter Pan collars, pin-tucks or matching knickers and bloomers. Often these children would come in matched pairs, their clothes identical or, if boy and girl, made of the same material. The occasional family of three of four kids might be identified by the fact that they were all, despite the age spread, wearing the same clothes, just in different sizes.
From the book "Ghosts of Spain" by Giles Tremlett